Hannah Kent Schoff

Hannah Kent Schoff (née Hannah Kent; June 3, 1853 – December 10, 1940) was an American welfare worker and reformer. She was influential in state and was a "National Child Welfare" and "Juvenile Criminal" legislation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Early life Kent was born on June 3, 1853, in Upper Darby Township, Pennsylvania, to woolen manufacturer Thomas and Fanny Kent. She was the eldest of five children and received an education from both private and church schools. On October 23, 1873, she married engineer Frederick Schoff, with whom she would raise seven children.

Career In the 1800s, Kent Schoff rose up the ladder within the National Congress of Mothers. She first became a project manager but was eventually promoted to vice president for a three-year term. She also founded the Pennsylvania Congress of Mothers in 1899 and became its first president until 1902. She was specifically interested in a case from May 1899, regarding an eight-year-old girl sentenced to the House of Refuge for arson. She also established a National Endowment Fund to sustain the organization, established the Home Education Division within the U. S. Bureau of Education, and created the first national magazine called the National Parent Teacher. In 1908, the first International Congress on the Welfare of the Child was held under the sponsorship of the National Congress of Mothers and Parent-Teacher Associations. In 1913, she was appointed director of the Home Education Division within the U. S. Bureau of Education.

While the organization supported the suffragist movement, Kent Schoff firmly believed in a women's power within the home.

Selected publications The following is a list of selected publications: The history of the juvenile court movement in Pennsylvania (1903) Education for child nurture and home making outside of schools (1915) The Wayward Child: a study of the causes of crime (1915) Education in the home (1916) Wisdom of the ages in bringing up children (1933)